


Distinct

by rotosalt (orphan_account)



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Throw me in the trash please
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 18:15:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6868114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/rotosalt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slow talks and loud dances. Before I met you I'd lost my chances. </p><p>Or the [nearly] 2000 word fic in which i make myself cry by having a pining josh and killing my bean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Distinct

Sweat pools at the small of his back.

Right now they're nothing but _flesh_. Merely skin sliding against skin, teeth finding shoulders, lips meeting lips. They are a raging ball of energy. A red supergiant ready to implode, ready to become a black hole and devour their surroundings.

There's toes curling and hearts beating and voices shaking. Lust and adrenaline is all that seems to fill their minds, all that seems to fill their veins. They slide together like two pieces of different coloured, warm play-doh, unalike but able to be combined seamlessly. Meshing together to form some sort of hybrid, something new and exciting.

Heat rushes over his body once more, there is only the feeling of nails on his spine. Of Tyler's hand on his hip. He cannot help but to feel like waking up to Tyler's hand on his hip would not be so bad and then he remembers he can't and he decides he's done feeling, he's done thinking.

He gives into the motions of what they're doing. He gives into the motions of skin sliding against skin, of just being _flesh_ , for the fourth time.

When he finishes it's to Tyler's hushed muttering in his ear, pulling him further into the illusion that he's special. Pulling him further into the illusion that Tyler is a good person. When Tyler finishes, it's with his nails leaving angry red marks down Josh's back.

He's pulling out and rolling over to lay next to Josh, running his fingers through pink locks of hair. Josh had dyed it just for him because he'd once said how much he loved pink, but he didn't know that.

Tyler didn't know hardly anything about Josh.

They fall asleep like that, Josh listening to the sound of Tyler's breathing, Tyler watching the sweat roll down Josh's torso.

Josh wakes up to the sound of clothes being pulled on. It's not a surprise, this is how it always is. Tyler doesn't look at him. He's purposefully avoiding eye contact despite the way Josh's stare is burning holes in that leather jacket of his.

A million thoughts are racing through his heads. Things like _"who even wears leather jackets anymore?"_

The answer is Tyler Fucking Joseph, and he looks damn good too.

When Tyler had first come up to him in that bar, he'd been terrified. Because Tyler is everything that he's not. Tyler is ripped skinny jeans and leather jackets and holes in his shoes from skating. He smells like cigarettes and bad decisions. He tastes like poison and bittersweet nostalgia.

Josh, on the other hand, is all soft edges. Even with his tattoo sleeve and gauges he gives off this aura of kindness, of late night kisses and chocolate pancakes. He smells like kind eyes and cotton candy. He tastes like fond memories and sugar.

And that's why they clashed so beautifully. When they were together it was a symphony of the most distinct sounds. Each part is a piece of them, each note, each chord. The room around them fills with colour as the music continues, as the symphony is written.

The walls are green, Tyler's pants are orange. Josh's moans are yellow, the sheets are pink and together they are purple.

Josh is shades of blue, like the sky and the ocean and all of the excitement you've ever experienced.  Tyler is red, like sunsets and blood and all of the nightmarish thoughts that haunt your dreams.

But together they make _purple_. And purple is so much different than either of them. Purple isn't just purple. It's _lilac_ or _plum_. It's the feeling of flight, the feeling of relieved tensions and melted chocolate. It's all of the beautiful things that you've ever seen or felt or touched. But it's fleeting like Tyler's touch, like Tyler's softness.

He doesn't bother to say goodbye when Tyler walks out the door. He doesn't bother to forget the thud of his footsteps.

Instead he paints his mind in shades of plum. In shades of Tyler's nails down his back and his lips on his throat. He closes his tired eyes but he can not sleep. He hopes that Tyler can't either, wherever he may be now.

Three days later Tyler calls him again. They meet in an alley next to a bar and Tyler is kissing him softly, tenderly.

When they are back to his apartment he slips out of his shoes and they stand in the middle of the floor in their socks. Noses touching, hearts racing, fingertips roaming. The blinds are open and they're letting in the moonlight. He thinks that if he ever were to marry this is what he'd want every day to feel like.

Tyler's eyes are sad and he sits by the window and lights a cigarette, white smoke billowing from his mouth. When the cancer stick is nothing more than a nub they're back to base one. Back to _flesh_.

It feels different tonight, feels more intimate. They are not plum, they are lilac. Soft caresses and slow kisses. Tonight they feel like lovers, like two romantic teenagers trying to make their first time special.

Except this isn't their first time and the outline of Tyler's teeth is still visible on his shoulder.

Tyler makes his way around expanses of pale skin, fingertips barely there as he maps out familiar territory like he's just touching him for the first time.

Every place he kisses is purple, every place he kisses is beautiful. He's making constellations out of freckles, connecting them with his tongue and honeyed words of praise.

Everything tonight is slow, like they've got all the time in the world, or maybe even like they've got hardly any time and they're trying to make the most of what they _have_ got.

When he falls asleep it's with his ear pressed to Tyler's chest, listening to the calm beats of his heart.

Tyler doesn't leave tonight. When he wakes up it is to the smell of pancakes and bacon, both of which he didn't know he had. He wakes up to warm sun and smiles. And it's endlessly confusing. Tyler's crooked bottom teeth are on display and he's never seen them in a smile. They're quite possibly the cutest thing he's ever seen.

He had been wrong earlier, if he were to marry, _this_ is what he'd want every day to feel like.

When Tyler leaves it's thirty-four minutes past one. He doesn't come back after that until a week and four days later.

He shows up in a rage. Cigarette already lit, clothes askew, mumbling something abot someone named Jenna and all Josh wants to do is wipe the name from his lips. All he wants is to wipe the name from Tyler's arsenal of insults because that's all it will ever be; an insult.

He knows who Jenna is all too well. In fact, he's the one who'd introduced Tyler to his lovely wife. Now she was just the beautiful woman set as Tyler's lockscreen.

Nothing that night is slow. It's fast paced and rough and oh-so plum. And Josh knows he's pissed at Jenna for something. Or maybe he's pissed at himself. But either way he's pissed and the way his teeth are everywhere is too good to pass up.

That night is bitter touches and sharp edges and cutting yourself on the broken glass of your favourite mug. Tyler is relentless in the conquest of Josh's everything. Tonight he is not an explorer, he is a pillager. He is a mad man with a scalpel, dissecting every fibre of Josh's being and sewing him back together, experimenting with the different ways he can be arranged and still work properly. He's an addict, a junkie, high off of the way Josh sounds when he bites here or when he presses  _just right._

He is a thousand different things but, tonight, not a single one of them is gentle.

When he falls asleep this time it is to the harsh grip of Tyler's hand on his own. He thinks Tyler may be scared of something but he's not sure what, so he holds his hand like it's a lifeline and sits quietly.

Tonight he dreams of a lake. More specifically, a house by a lake. The house is light grey with a white wrap-around porch and a swing and a little girl named Ruby running around the yard. Her hair is braided, if you could call what Tyler had done to her hair braids, and she was petting their dog who was named Milo. Everything was excruciatingly realistic, from the dogs black fur, to the matching wedding rings they wore.

Josh recognizes the house. It's the one he'd been left when his mother passed. She'd always told him that when he found his soulmate to bring them there as she had, as her mother had, as her grandfather had. He isn't sure how they'd been able to tell that they'd found their soulmate but he was perfectly content with the image of Tyler sitting on that wrap-around porch.

When he wakes up he is alone. The bed is cold and Tyler's shirt is on the ground.

Tyler doesn't come back after that. Doesn't call, doesn't text. He doesn't see Tyler Robert Joseph ever again until one day he's looking at a news report in a small cafe.

On the television there's a picture of him. 

_Tyler Robert Joseph committed suicide today, four hours ago at the age of twenty-nine. Police say had the bullet not killed him, the pills he'd taken would have. A note was written, only composed of a few short sentences. Police are working on identifying the person, Josh, mentioned in the note._

The woman falters as she reads, looking to someone behind the camera with a concerned look. He knows that expression. That's the "this is really personal, are you sure," look.

_That's all for today. We hope you stay safe and sane on this windy Sunday._

Josh thinks that Tyler deserved more than this crude invasion of his privacy. It saddens him to think that the media had to publicize his suicide this way.

He doesn't cry until he reaches his apartment. He doesn't notice the smell of stale ramen because all he can think about is how the warmth of his tears cannot compare to the warmth of Tyler's fingertips.

He'd lost a best friend. He'd lost a lover. He'd lost a soulmate. He'd lost his everything.

Before, his absence from Josh's life was ignorable, but now there is a gaping hole in the lilac picture they'd painted together. His lungs ache and his knees give out.

There's a piece of paper. It looks like it'd been hastily shoved under the door. It's folded unevenly and when he opens it up Jenna's wedding ring falls to the ground. He catches the second one before it slips out.

He isn't sure how to react so he paints his mind red. Red like Tyler. Red like the blood he tasted in his mouth. Red like regret. Red like stolen kisses. Red like Tyler's lips and smile and fingertips. Red like the curve of his ear. Like the stubble on his jaw. Like those crooked bottom teeth.

When he falls asleep it's to the thought of Tyler's hand on his hip. To the thought of Tyler's breathing. To the thought of Tyler's heartbeat. To the thought of Tyler's hand gripping his own. To the thought of waking up to pancakes and bacon. To the thought of that house and that kid and that dog.

He falls asleep with Tyler's shirt sticking to his skin. From then on he dreams in shades of red. Purple becomes a bittersweet nostalgia and he slowly lets the gaping hole in their lilac picture fill itself with  _red._

Red like Tyler's lips and red like the words he'd found written on that paper.

 


End file.
